Fathers and Sons (15 page)

Katya, who was unhurriedly arranging the flowers, looked up at Bazarov in bewilderment – and meeting his bold, roving
gaze, she flushed red to her ears. Anna Sergeyevna shook her head.

‘Trees in a forest,’ she repeated. ‘So, in your opinion, there is no difference between a stupid man and an intelligent one,
between a good man and a bad one?’

‘No, there is. As there is between a sick man and a healthy one. The lungs of a consumptive aren’t in the same condition as
yours or mine, although they are identically made. We know approximately the causes of bodily ailments, and moral diseases
come from bad education, from all kinds of rubbish people’s heads have been crammed with since childhood – in a word, from
the shameful state of society. Reform society, and you’ll have no more diseases.’

Bazarov said all this looking as if he was thinking to himself, ‘I really don’t care whether you believe me or not!’ He slowly
stroked his side whiskers with long fingers and let his eyes roam the corners of the room.

‘And do you suppose,’ said Anna Sergeyevna, ‘that, when society is reformed, there’ll be no stupid or bad people?’

‘At least in a properly ordered society it won’t matter if a man is stupid or intelligent, bad or good.’

‘Yes, I understand. They’ll have an identical spleen.’

‘Quite so, madame.’

Anna Sergeyevna turned to Arkady.

‘And what do you think, Arkady Nikolayevich?’

‘I agree with Yevgeny,’ he answered.

‘Gentlemen, you astonish me,’ said Anna Sergeyevna, ‘but we’ll talk more about this. Now I can hear my aunt coming to have
tea. We must spare her ears.’

Anna Sergeyevna’s aunt, Princess Kh–ya, a thin little woman with a face pinched in like someone making a fist, staring malevolent
eyes and a grey wig, came in and, barely greeting the guests, sank into a velvet easy chair on which no one except for her
had the right to sit. Katya put a footstool under her feet. The old woman didn’t thank her, didn’t even look at her, but moved
her hands about under the yellow shawl which enveloped most of her puny body. The princess liked the colour yellow: her cap
had bright-yellow ribbons.

‘Did you sleep well, Auntie?’ Anna Sergeyevna asked, raising her voice.

‘That dog’s in here again,’ was the old woman’s grumbling reply, and, seeing that Fifi had made two tentative steps in her
direction, she cried, ‘Shoo, shoo!’

Katya called Fifi and opened the door for her. Fifi happily rushed out, hoping that someone would take her for a walk, but,
left alone outside the door, she began to scratch and whine. The princess frowned and Katya was about to go out…

‘I think tea must be ready,’ said Anna Sergeyevna. ‘Gentlemen, come. Auntie, would you like to have tea?’

The princess got up from her chair without a word and left the drawing room first. Everyone followed her into the dining room.
A page in Cossack livery noisily pulled back from the table another favourite cushioned chair, into which the princess sank.
Katya, who was pouring the tea, served her first in a cup with a painted coat of arms. The old woman put honey in her cup
(she thought that to take tea with sugar was both sinful
⁴
and expensive, although she herself didn’t spend a penny on anything) and suddenly asked in a croaking voice:

‘What does
Prince
Ivan say in his letter?’

No one answered her. Bazarov and Arkady soon made out that no one paid her any attention for all their politeness to her.
‘They keep her for show – spawn of princes,’ thought Bazarov. After tea Anna Sergeyevna suggested going for a walk. But it
began to drizzle, and the whole company, with the exception of the princess, returned to the drawing room. The neighbour who
liked playing cards arrived. His name was Porfiry Platonych; he was a plump gentleman, very polite and full of smiles, with
grey hair and short, well-turned little legs. Anna Sergeyevna, who more and more was talking to Bazarov, asked him if he would
like to play with them an old-fashioned round of
préférence
.
⁵
Bazarov agreed, saying he had to become prepared for the duties of a country doctor that lay ahead for him.

‘Be careful,’ said Anna Sergeyevna. ‘Porfiry Platonych and I will destroy you. And, Katya,’ she added, ‘you play something
for Arkady Nikolayevich. He loves music and we too can listen.’

Katya unwillingly went to the piano; and Arkady, although he did indeed love music, unwillingly followed her. He thought Anna
Sergeyevna was dismissing him and, like every young man of his age, he felt stirring in his heart a confused and painful feeling
like some foretaste of love. Katya raised the lid of the piano and, without looking at Arkady, asked in a low voice:

‘What would you like me to play you?’

‘Whatever you like,’ Arkady answered indifferently.

‘What kind of music do you like best?’ Katya said again without moving.

‘Classical music,’ Arkady answered in the same tone of voice.

‘Do you like Mozart?’

‘Yes, I do.’

Katya got out Mozart’s Fantasy in C-Minor.
⁶
She played very well, although a little severely and drily. She sat firm and upright, not taking her eyes off the music and
with her lips pressed firmly together, and it was only at the end of the sonata that her cheeks began to glow and a little
lock of loosened hair fell over her dark eyebrows.

The last part of the sonata made a particular impression on Arkady, the part where, amidst the enchanting gaiety of the light-hearted
melody, there is a surge of such anguished, almost tragic grief… But his thoughts occasioned by the sounds of Mozart were
not of Katya. Looking at her, he only thought, ‘This girl really plays quite well, and she’s not bad-looking either.’

Having finished the sonata, Katya asked, without taking her hands from the keys, ‘Have you had enough?’ Arkady stated that
he wouldn’t presume to impose on her any more and began talking to her about Mozart. He asked her if she had chosen this sonata
herself, or had somebody recommended it to her. But Katya gave him monosyllabic answers: she just
hid
, she went into herself. When that happened to her, it took a long time before she came out. Her actual face took on then
an obstinate, almost obtuse expression. She was not exactly shy but mistrustful and a bit scared of the sister who brought
her up – something of course which the latter did not suspect. To
keep face Arkady was reduced to calling to Fifi, who had come back, and stroking her head with an amiable smile. Katya went
back to doing her flowers.

Meanwhile Bazarov paid fine after fine. Anna Sergeyevna played a masterly game of cards; Porfiry Platonych too could hold
his own. Bazarov was the loser; although his loss was insignificant, it still wasn’t very pleasant for him. At supper Anna
Sergeyevna again brought up the subject of botany.

‘Let’s go for a walk tomorrow morning,’ she said to him. ‘I want to learn from you the Latin names of wild plants and their
properties.’

‘Why do you need Latin names?’ asked Bazarov.

‘One needs order in everything,’ she replied.

‘What a wonderful woman Anna Sergeyevna is,’ Arkady exclaimed when he was alone with his friend in the room they’d been given.

‘Yes,’ answered Bazarov, ‘that’s a lady with a brain. And she’s seen life.’

‘In what sense do you mean, Yevgeny Vasilyich?’

‘In a good sense, my friend Arkady Nikolaich, in a good sense! I am sure too that she manages her estate really well. But
she isn’t the real wonder, that’s her sister.’

‘What? That little dark girl?’

‘Yes, that little dark girl. There is something fresh and untouched and timid and silent, anything you like. There is someone
worth bothering with. You can make out of her whatever you want. The other one’s been around.’

Arkady didn’t answer Bazarov, and each went to bed with his own particular thoughts in his head.

Anna Sergeyevna too thought of her guests that night. She had liked Bazarov – for his unpretentiousness and for the very bluntness
of his views. She saw in him something new she hadn’t come across before and she was curious.

Anna Sergeyevna was a rather strange being. Having no prejudices, having no real beliefs even, she stopped before nothing,
but she didn’t move in any particular direction. Many things she saw clearly, many things engaged her interest, and nothing
fully satisfied her: she probably didn’t want complete
satisfaction. Her mind was questing and indifferent at one and the same time: her doubts were never sufficiently allayed for
her to forget them, but they never grew so as to cause her alarm. If she hadn’t been rich and independent, perhaps she would
have joined the fray and known passion… But she had an easy life, although she was sometimes bored, and she went on living
day after unhurried day, only occasionally prey to anxiety. Rainbow colours sometimes flashed before her eyes, but when they
faded she was relieved and didn’t regret them. Her imagination even went beyond the bounds of what the laws of conventional
morality regard as permissible; but even then the blood just went on coursing quietly through the veins of her calm, lovely
and graceful body. At times, as she left her scented bath, all warm and pampered, she would ponder the insignificance of life,
its sorrow, its toil and evil… A rush of courage would fill her spirit, and she would be fired by a noble impulse; but a draught
would come in through a half-open window, and Anna Sergeyevna would shrink and complain and almost get angry, and at that
moment she only wanted one thing – for that horrid wind to stop blowing.

Like all women who haven’t managed to know love she wanted something without herself knowing exactly what. In fact she didn’t
really want anything although she thought she wanted everything. She had barely been able to tolerate the late Odintsov (she
had married him out of calculation although she probably wouldn’t have done so if she hadn’t recognized he was a good man)
and she experienced a secret revulsion for all men, whom she thought of as nothing more than messy, heavy, flabby, limp and
tiresome creatures. Somewhere abroad she had once met a young, handsome Swede with a chivalrous expression, honest blue eyes
and an open brow; he had made a strong impression on her, but that hadn’t kept her from returning to Russia.

‘What a strange man that doctor is!’ she thought as she lay in her splendid bed on her lace pillows under a light silken coverlet…
Anna Sergeyevna had inherited from her father a bit of his taste for luxury. She had dearly loved her father, with all his
sins but a kind heart; he worshipped her, joked with her as a
friend and equal, trusted her completely and took her advice. Her mother she barely remembered.

‘What a strange man the doctor is!’ she repeated to herself. She stretched, smiled and put her hands behind her head. Then
she scanned a couple of pages of a silly French novel, dropped the book – and fell asleep, all clean and cold in her clean
and scented sheets.

The next morning Anna Sergeyevna and Bazarov went off botanizing immediately after breakfast and returned just before dinner.
Arkady didn’t go anywhere and spent an hour or so with Katya. He wasn’t bored with her, and she herself volunteered to play
yesterday’s sonata again. But when Odintsova came back, his heart tightened for a moment… She walked through the garden with
slightly weary steps, her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes shone more than usual from under her round straw hat. She was
turning round in her fingers the stem of a wild flower, a light shawl had slipped down to her elbows, and the broad grey ribbons
of her hat lay on her breast. Bazarov walked behind her confidently and easily, as usual, but Arkady didn’t like the expression
on his face – though it was cheerful, even affectionate. Muttering ‘Good day!’ Bazarov went off to his room, and Anna Sergeyevna
distractedly shook Arkady’s hand and also walked on past him.

‘Good day!’ thought Arkady. ‘As if we hadn’t seen each other today?’

It’s a known fact that time sometimes flies like a bird and sometimes creeps along like a worm. But it’s best for a man if
he doesn’t notice whether it’s passing quickly or slowly. That’s how Arkady and Bazarov spent a fortnight at Odintsova’s.
It was partly helped by the order she had established in the house and in her life. She maintained it rigidly and made others
observe it. Everything during the day took place at a known time. In the morning, at eight precisely, the whole company
gathered for tea. From tea till lunch everyone did what he wanted while the hostess was busy with her steward (the estate
was run on a quit-rent basis), her butler and her head housekeeper. Before dinner the company assembled again to talk or read.
The evenings were given over to walking, cards and music. At half past ten Anna Sergeyevna withdrew to her room, gave her
orders for the following day and went to bed. Bazarov didn’t like this measured, slightly formal regularity of everyday life;
he claimed, ‘It’s as if you were going along on rails’: liveried footmen and dignified butlers offended his democratic sensibility.
He found that if things had gone that far, they might as well sit down to dinner like the English, in white tie and tails.
He once had it out with Anna Sergeyevna on this subject. Her way of behaving was such that anyone would be quite open about
what they thought in front of her. She heard him out and said, ‘From your point of view you are right – and maybe in this
case I am playing the grand lady. But one can’t live in the country without order; otherwise one would be overcome by boredom.’
And she went on acting in her own way. Bazarov grumbled, but the reason that he and Arkady had such a comfortable time at
Odintsova’s was because everything in her house ‘went along as if it was on rails’.

With all this a change took place in both young men from the very first days of their stay at Nikolskoye. Bazarov, whom Anna
Sergeyevna clearly liked though she seldom agreed with him, felt a sense of disquiet he hadn’t had before: he was easily irritated,
was reluctant to talk, looked angrily about him and couldn’t sit still, as if something were nagging him. And Arkady, who
had finally decided he was in love with Anna Sergeyevna, began to indulge in quiet despair. However, this despair didn’t prevent
him from becoming close to Katya: it even helped him to be on affectionate and friendly terms with her. ‘
She
doesn’t appreciate me! So that’s that!… But here is a kind being who doesn’t reject me,’ he thought, and his heart again
tasted the pleasure of high-minded generosity. Katya dimly felt he was seeking some kind of solace in her company, and didn’t
deny either him or herself the innocent pleasure of a friendship that was both timid and trusting. In front of Anna Sergeyevna
they
didn’t speak to one another: Katya always shrank under her sister’s sharp eyes, and Arkady – as is right for a man in love
– when he was near the object of his love, couldn’t pay attention to anything else. But he was at ease with Katya on her own.
He felt it was beyond his power to engage Anna Sergeyevna’s interest; he was shy and became flustered when he was alone with
her; and she didn’t know what to say to him; he was too young for her. On the other hand with Katya Arkady felt at home; he
was indulgent with her and didn’t stop her sharing with him what she had learnt from music, reading novels, poetry and other
nonsense, without himself noticing or acknowledging that this nonsense interested him. For her part Katya didn’t stop his
melancholy pose. Arkady felt good in Katya’s company, and Anna Sergeyevna in Bazarov’s, and so it usually happened that after
a short time together both couples would go off by themselves, especially during their walks. Katya
adored
nature, and Arkady liked nature too although he didn’t dare admit it. Anna Sergeyevna was fairly indifferent to nature, like
Bazarov. Since now our friends were apart almost the whole time, that too had consequences: their relationship started to
change. Bazarov stopped talking to Arkady about Odintsova, he even stopped criticizing her ‘aristocratic little ways’. It’s
true he continued to praise Katya and only advised Arkady to control her tendency towards sentimentality, but his praise was
cursory and his advice stiff. In general he chatted to Arkady much less than before… as if he were avoiding him, were ashamed
of him…